Had Hanno recognized him? He did not know and it did not matter. Everything was wonderful to him now. The heron was flapping home across the islands to the heronry; the swans climbed up on to the riverbank and there raised their pointed wings high like Seraphim before folding themselves into white curves for sleep. The river was a lake of glassy fire because the sunset was still in the sky, but over the roof of Green Knowe, pale green daylighrt still hung with the evening star there again, and the rapt flight of bats. So many free things! And the hose itself a guardian of happiness and strange thoughts, a keeper of secrets, into which he was taking one too big for him.